Bitterman's tale
by Punko McMac
Summary: Ah'm a species of one, not meant to be. Alone in a never ending war against fellow warriors. Alone, forever, slave to masters I can't see. But that's life."


Bitterman - a Quake tale   
by Punko McMac 

I don't own the characters in this story. The tragic character of Bitterman belongs to ID software, as does Quake 2 and Quake III Arena, which are mentioned in the story. I don't own those two, either. Not me. Just so we're all clear. :-) 

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Ah'm fucked. 

I's been a proven fact through out mah life. 

As a child, Ah was born to a hard-drinking ma and a spare-the-rod, spoil-the-child pa who most definately did not spare th' rod. Already had a big brother to hassle me. Not two years after Ah was born Ah got another brother to get me into all sorts a' trouble. Although, that's not being fucked. That's life. Being fucked is having both brothers die in a barn-fire, an' havin' you survive...to be blamed bah yer parents for the fire an' the deaths. At nine years old... THAT's fucked. 

Ah went through school like a right-normal kid, target a' the teachers, target a' the bullies, target a' the whole damn school. S'okay. Ah could normally punch my way through muh worries. Although, Ah did kind of mess up when Ah applied that theory to the teacher problem. See, you'd think through th' history of the U-nahted States of America, Sir, teachers in the South'd wise up, learn it ain't that great to discipline yuh students with a meter stick. But hey, that straightened me out. Ah messed up, so Ah got messed up. That's life. Course, when Ah learned they ain't a'sposed to do that kinda stuff n'more, Ah was might' pissed. THEN Ah knew I was bein' fucked. 

High school. First hour o' the first day a' the first year I get the shat kicked outta me bah a few guys Ah reckon'd Ah could take. Nope. An' in frunna this girl ah liked, too. Lust at first sight, yessir. Mighty pretty. Legs all the way up, an' at the top, whistles> whatta...well, y'all get the picture, Ah reckon. Now, things actually went well for me that first year a high school. Ah was learning things well, all of it was stickin' in mah brain just fine. And bah the end a' that year, me and that pretty girl, JoAnna, we was goin' out. Now, what's bein' fucked is goin' at it for yer first time, the both a' you, when ye' supposed to be at prom, an' bein' walked in on bah her parents. 

Can you imagine that mighty awkward situation? Yah walk in from dinner or somethin', and there's yer one an' only daughter, apple a' yer eye, legs wrapped around some boy you ain't seen a fist full'a times a'fore and mouth screamin' obscenities like you wouldn't b'lieve, pretty pattern'd skirt that you paid quite a buck for scrunched up around her hips, the two of 'em...bouncing against each other rhythmically. Jesus, his hands are gropin' at her like there ain't gonna be a t'marrah... well, then again, if you have your way...sufficed tuh say, yu'r MAD. 

So what did she do, mah darlin' JoAnna? "He forced himself on me, daddy, he was forcing me!!" That, too, issa example of how Ah'm fucked. 

Her Pa beat the livin' snot outta me, then sent me on mah way home. My own Pa did him one better when Ah got home. Seems JoAnna's ma had called ahead to see what kinda bastard my parents had raised. Pa ga'e me one helluva beating. Spare the rod, no sir. Gave me a bit of brain damage, it did. Ah'm no retard, yuh see. 's just this damn bruise on mah brain, always making me talk like Ah'm some kick of a hick from Tuscaloosa fresh from roastin' a raccoon. Not that Ah got anything 'gainst y'all from Tuscaloosa. Nope, not me. I'm ed-u-cated. 

Pa sent me to a military high school after that li'l debacle. Gunna get some respect for authority in me, he said. An' he was right. I went on to be one of the top students in combat class. Uh, the other classes went ... ok, too. But man, yuh want a guy hurt, Ah could do the job. Graduated in that golden year a' 2068, when Operation Quake was open'd up again on account of the Stroggo invasion. These damn cyborg things from deep in space, come'n attack us. So, me an' mah buddies signed the dotted line, joined the army, got sent off on a ship 'bout middle of the war through this worm hole to kick the shat outta the Stroggo-borgs at their own home planet. We was gonna 'ttack em en mass and take out their whole invasion. 

'Cept it didn't go down like that. Damn 'borgs fired off some kin'a electromagnetic cannon, the size of a god damn city, right at our drop ships. O'er half the friggin' army's drop-pods got fried and turned into mach-speed instant caskets. Ah was lucky. Some asshole clipped me and knocked me outta the magnetic wave. Ah survived and ended up doin' a covert job on Stroggo's capital city, and Ah even ended up puttin' the PAIN on a Stroggo general on his asteroid base. Fragged his big mecha-suit thing, then blasted his ass in half when he fell out. Ka-boom, baby. 

Now, here's where fucked comes in tah play yet again. Ah jetted outta that exploding space base in an escape pod. But did Ah escape? No! Escape pod, escape. Escape pod, escape. One plus one, two. Seems like easy enough equation, right? Well, damn Strogg bastards didn't pay 'tention to math class, it seems. The goddamn pod gets blasted by one of their defence satellites on th' way home, and I crash into one of their remote bases. A science station. A Mad Scientist's house, Stroggo style. S'what do they do? They turn me into a science-fiction reject-o freakazoid!!! 

Motherfuckers!!! (pa'don mah language) 

See, a Strogg is a parasitical alien-thing that looks kinda like a damn squid, but it usually lives in a liquid environment, or sum'pin like that. So they implant themselves intah host bodies, an' with the aid of robot parts, they can survive, and pack serious heat while they're at it. That's why all of the Strogg class-troops have pipes runnin' in to the heads; to supply thuh alien parasite with what it needs tah live. Well, since humanity was doin' such a good job ah' blasting the ever loving shit out of them, they wanted a better host-body. Sum'pin stronger. Something that can survive. In comes me, little old fucked me. They start the experiments an' shit on me to turn me into some kind of superfreak. 

They suped up my body so it re-acts to environmental stimuli, like the kind you'd find in a battle. Mah strength up an' triples, I can jump near three meters in the air, an' mah vision is just freakin' phenominal. But that'd be just fine with me if yuh left it at that; you wanna turn me into Superman? Fine. But they did more, those Stroggo shit-ticks. Mah skin turned baby-puke green, mah eyes are black pits, mah bones are filled with a weird cold liquid that makes mah skin crawl, an' every joint can bend like a friggin' rubber band. Double jointed much? THAT's fucked. Whut's worse, when all this superman stuff kicks in, these black tentacle-tattoos on mah head, back, and arms act up, start moving an' slithering over my skin. Now that's just goddamn creepy. 

They aren't happy with the end result, Ah think. Maybe i's the fact that Ah tore them all to bits with mah bare hands, and levelled their complex. Maybe. Don't know, never will, though. See, these things, these intergallactic things called the Vadrigar, they yanked me from the Stroggo science station when Ah was at mah fav'rite part (holding flaming wreckage above the soon-to-be-crushed head of a frightened Stroggo technician). They done teleported mah green ass. 

Now, I'm a pit fighter or somethin', in these intergalactic-thing's big carnival of killers. See, these things drop me and a buncha other poor bastards into a big arena, an' we have to duke it out with guns an' the like, huntin' each other like game. Real visceral stuff. There's all sor's a' guys in here. Aliens, humans, even a few fellow veterans from the Stroggo War! Ah can't tell yah how happy Ah was when Ah saw them. One guy, last time Ah'd seen him he was, like, 20 years younger! He was one sour sun'bitch, always chompin' on a cigar. Hawhaw... ain't changed much, looks like, 'cept his hair's gone gray. Oh, an' this one feller Ah'd fought beside at one point, guy who went by the name a' Nathan Grunt, he's in here too. Kinda single minded fellah, but he's a brother-in-arms, so I wouldn'ta minded it much... 

Except they hate me. To them, Ah'm a Stroggo, or Ah might as well be one. Fellow humans. Fellow soldiers. Fellow casualties of war. Mah own kind. Mah own kind hates me. Or at least, they would be mah own kind. But I'm a science-freak. Ah don't even have a kind now. 

Ah'm a species of one, not meant to be. Alone in a never ending war against fellow warriors who eat the same food as me, breath the same air as me, bleed the same blood as me. Alone, forever, slaves to masters I can't see. 

That's fucked. 

Ah'm fucked.   


But, then again, that's life.   
  


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